Author: Gregory M. Fox
Category: Fiction
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/gregory-m-fox/page,2,17426-a-breath-of-fiction.html
Fire
Section II
Flame
Skkrtch—fwsch!
The tiny flame sprang to life and began leaping into the darkness. The man cupped a hand in front of the match to prevent it from being blown out by any drafts or quick movements. While he looked for a candle, the flame crept down the length of the match, digesting the thin wood slowly, but consuming it with steady determination until it licked the man’s fingers. He cursed and flailed wildly to extinguish the match. His erratic movements nearly tore the soul out of the flame, wrenching away its grasp on the match which was tossed to the ground.
Grumbling, the man fiddled again with the box of matches and drew another.
Skkrtch—fwsch!
The night gave birth to another flame, and the man continued his search, finding a candle tucked in a cupboard. He held match to wick, and like mitosis, that young flame stretched apart creating an identical copy to flicker on. Meanwhile, the discarded match still glowed with an ember, almost the ghost of a flame, that by some slight breath of air found hope, took hold of the carpet fibers, and lifted itself from the ground like a great beast ready to devour.
Sigh
He poured his aged and potent dream into a glass bottle. He shouldn’t have been handling it in such a small room lest the intoxicating fumes cause him to pass out, but that is the place where dreams live or die—in small dark rooms where people sit alone.
He looked around for a rag. Unable to find one, he fished an old shirt out of his dresser, tore it up, and wadded it into the bottle’s narrow neck. Next, and this was the most easily overlooked step, he washed his hands in case any drops of dream still clung to them.
He took up the bottle and stepped into the night.
It was quiet. He couldn’t tell whether it was the silence of anticipation or the silence of walking into a room where he was just being discussed. He didn’t care. Either way, it was about to be broken. He shook the bottle, lit the rag with a match, and tossed it through the doorway. As the glass shattered, that potent dream ignited, spreading a wave of destruction across the floorboards. The house was already an inferno when he turned and walked down the street, a man with nothing.
Blaze
It was cold, but the fire kept us warm beneath the stars. Michael shuffled around, roasting marshmallows, feeding the fire, poking it with a stick. I was content just to sit and watch the blaze.
A tiny spark frolicked in the breeze right in front of me, and to my surprise, it spoke: “Would you like to join us?”
“Who are you?”
“A fire spirit,” it said. “Come along.”
Michael didn’t seem to hear anything. The next moment, I was falling toward the fire, but the closer I got, the bigger it became, until I was in the center of the hottest part of the fire. My entire body glowed like I was made of fire. The spirits all gathered around me and took my hands, guiding me in frenzied dances over sticks and logs. Then, one by one, we would climb to the top of the fire, and leap into the night sky. Going from the heat of the fire into the cold air was like plunging into deep water. I dove as far as I could, reaching out to touch the distant burning stars.
“I’m bored,” Michael groaned. “Let’s go inside.”
“No,” I whispered, “just a little longer.”
Fusion
“Finished,” she said. “It’s finished.” Her eyes were both exultant and terrified, the way I always figured Oppenheimer’s eyes must have looked when they tested the atomic bomb. It was the first time in days that Tamara had emerged from the lab. People had worried, but I just assumed she was in the zone. Most of us researchers had those creative sprees. But once I saw her—pale, disheveled, a little manic—I began to think I should have been more concerned.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s finished?”
Without answering, she took my hand and dragged me to the lab. The place was a wreck, and the acrid odor of burnt metal hung in the air. Alone on a table at the far end of the room sat a large box hooked up to several wires.
“What is it?” I asked again.
“I call it love,” she said. “Want to turn it on?”
“What will happen?”
“Matter will become energy.”
“Is it safe?”
Her eyes were wild and gleeful. “No.”
“What will happen to us?
“Transformation. Annihilation. Fusion.”
Her hand was still wrapped around mine, squeezing tightly.
“Do it.”
She flipped a switch. The box started to hum.
Fire
Lynn set the glasses beside the empty wine bottle and lay down on the blanket next to Tommy. With the nail of her middle finger, she delicately traced lines on his chest, spelling something in a secret language. “You’re warm,” she said.
“So are you.” Gently, he took her hand in his and pressed her fingers to his lips. She had never looked as beautiful as she did that night. Starlight danced in her hair and in her eyes and on the skin so lightly flushed by wine. “I wish I could freeze this moment forever,” he said. “I never want to leave you.”
It started low on the horizon, like a sunrise or like the glow of a nearby city. Then a pillar of fire and smoke leapt into the sky, billowing like an oncoming storm cloud. The sky burned so bright that roosters crowed and sunflowers opened up like terror stricken eyes.
Tommy wrapped both arms around Lynn and held her tightly. She buried her face in his shoulder.
And there was wind.
And there was heat.
There was a rending and a tearing and a shattering of all things.
And there was a fusion of all things.
Lights
There they were again—the lights. Closer tonight. Maybe just brighter. He stepped into the house and grabbed the shotgun.
He had spotted the first almost two months ago. A faint light, flickering deep down in the valley. It could have been a stoplight if there were any roads within thirty square miles. He went inside for a pair of binoculars. When he came back out, it was gone, leaving him wondering if it had been there at all. But two nights later, it was back. And it was brighter. The light shined nearly fifteen minutes, then vanished.
Several nights over the next few weeks, the light came and went. He watched it suspiciously. Then it multiplied—two, three, maybe a dozen now. Even more disconcerting, they were getting brighter. Or getting closer. Did they know he was here? Were they coming for him?
They. Who were they? Or what? He was getting tired of wondering. His finger was on the trigger. What was he hoping to do? Scare them? Warn them? Maybe he just wanted them to know he was here. He fired into the air.
A flash sprang from the valley—he saw everything.
Then he was blind.
Sides
I understand you recently applied for a gun license.
He has a shotgun over there. I know it’s not for hunting.
Is that your gun?
What?
Did you threaten him—your neighbor—and then go out and buy that gun?
This is only for show. It is not even loaded.
Did you threaten him?
He threatened me first.
So you did threaten him.
Are you listening to me? It’s not even loaded. You can see.
Sir, do not reach for the gun.
What?
If you touch the gun, I will fire.
You see? Guns are all that matter. You have one, so I must obey you. He has one, so I must live in fear.
I think maybe I should bring you down to the station.
No.
That wasn’t a suggestion.
I won’t go.
Sir, don’t make me—
I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve owned this house for thirty-three years. My father lived here before that. He has no right—
Look buddy, I don’t care who’s lived w
here or for how long. But you are coming to the station.
I only want some security. Some piece of mind.
Stop.
You are not listening to me.
I said freeze.
It’s not even—
Sip
Clink, clink-clink.
“So what do you think?”
The mugs here are always heavier than I remember and almost spill. Steam surrounds my face, like my breath on a cold day. I blow on the coffee but still burn my tongue on the first sip.
“Ah, ouch”
“Too hot?”
“Yeah, burned my tongue.” Bitter too. I reach for a couple more sugar packets and pour them into the mug.
Clink, clink.
Another sip. I hiss at how hot it is.
“Milk will cool that down.”
“I don’t like it with milk. I’ll just wait.” So I do.
And she’s staring at me. “Jim?” She’s frowning and looks concerned. Like the time I had yelled at her on our thirteenth. This must be important.
“What?”
“What do you think?”
What do I think? I’m not even sure I understood what she’s been talking about. “I’m not sure.” That bides me time. Now that my tongue has cooled, I remember that the coffee was still too bitter. Two more packets of sugar.
Clink, clink-clink, clink.
“Well?”
She’ll be angry with me, but she knows I’ll be better with coffee. “Can you explain it again?”
She sighs.
Less steam now. Another sip. It’s perfect.
Combustion
Meryl couldn’t sleep, so she made some coffee and took her mug out on the porch to wait for sunrise. So, she was the only one who saw Jim Corbin walking out of town with a gun on his hip and an empty bag slung over his shoulder. When he returned, fourteen hours later, the pack was stuffed to bursting.
A month later, a strange old man wandered into town. He asked everyone he met. “What happened to the years?” Receiving no answers, he gave up these interrogations and went into Carl’s diner. He sat at the window, looking out at Main and Washington, the center of town. Meryl was working and poured him six cups of coffee before he got up suddenly, tossed some money on the table, and left. He was following Jim Corbin right out of town.
Leaving the diner a couple hours later, Meryl was almost run over by a fire truck. Then she saw the smoke. There was already quite a commotion about it. They said it was the Corbin place up in flames. They pulled a young boy no one recognized out of the fire, but all they found of Jim was his bones.
Star
“Look up there,” she said, “that star is falling.”
And it was. Slightly to the Northeast a fiery blue speck was trickling down the sky like a drop of water trickling down a window. “I’ll catch it for you,” he said.
And he was off, racing across the field, barely setting his feet on the ground. By the time he was underneath it, the star was falling much faster. He planted his feet like football player waiting to return a kickoff and waited for that ball of light to fall into his hands.
And it did. There was fire all around him, but especially his hands—burning, searing, consuming. He tossed it away into the grass where it blazed up briefly, then stifled itself in the evening dew. Smoke curled around him as he stared dumbfounded at what was left of the star. A lump of what looked like coal surrounded by blackened grass. Then he looked at his red and blistered hands. The skin was already peeling off.
She was suddenly beside him. “Let me kiss them,” she said.
And he lifted his shaking hands. Delicately she kissed each finger till his skin was new and white as snow.
Bullet
The bullet wanted to achieve great things. It had been loaded into the pistol on Tuesday and had been waiting anxiously. Sherriff Turner would only load one bullet a day to save on ammo, and also to temper his happy trigger finger.
The bullet leapt from the gun screaming like an angry, disgruntled youth who wanted to stick it to the world. Charging through the air, it narrowly missed shattering a dozen or so bottles and shot glasses scattered across the bar. The bullet reached its target and burrowed into the chest of Bulldog O’Donnell: a local ne’er-do-well with unfortunate facial features, who had just stolen the wrong man’s whiskey. The bullet tore apart skin and muscle and cleverly slipped between two ribs. Barely slowing in its pace, it nicked one lung and careened through an enormous cavity right where Bulldog’s heart should have been, or rather, where his heart had been before he traded it for a Colt .45 and a thoroughbred stallion.
Thus it happened that the bullet lurched out of Bulldog’s back, embedding itself into the stucco and brick of saloon’s wall, wondering where it had gone so wrong and why all its hopes had been disappointed.
Box
The plain wooden box had sat in the basement since they moved into the house. Before that, Jim had kept it at the bottom of his closet. That’s where it had been when he and Nancy first met, and in the sixty-two years since, she had never seen inside, a fact that featured in many of their argument. Nancy would bring up openness, and Jim would grumble about privacy. There was often yelling, and Jim once punched the wall so hard he broke three fingers. Eventually they settled into a tense silence on the subject. Nancy might joke about “secrets under the floorboards,” but he would just scowl. Somehow, they kept it from the kids, at least until Jim was on his deathbed. His last lucid words were: “I want you to burn it Nancy. I know I can trust you. I love you.”
She had hesitated at the last moment. After years of wondering if she really knew her husband, his secret was in her hands.
It was tempting.
She flung the box into the fireplace. The man she loved had died, and she couldn’t bear to lose him again.
Just then, a scream rose out of the flames.
Wanderer
Her birth was tumultuous, but silent. Despite her lack of wailing, she was no less terrified to leave her tiny world of safety and warmth to be thrust out into the darkness and cold of space. Separated from mother and from home, she was forced to mature quickly. Without any guidance, she learned for herself the dangers of a universe that took no notice of her.
It was a lonely life. Often, she would pass by a star surrounded by planets bathed lovingly in light and grow envious, knowing many of her brothers and sisters and cousins must be there in those worlds of warmth and joy. But she would pass by, aimless and homeless as always, knowing only that she must continue.
One day, weary of life and hopeless for rest after light-years of wandering, she saw it: a planet directly in her path. It was small and dark, but looked peaceful, and she knew it would be her resting place. Using the last measure of her strength, the lightbeam descended through the atmosphere and came to rest on the face of a young man.
“Look!” he said to the girl beside him, “the first star of the night.”
Numbers
The water hitting my face woke me. I was lying beside a hole that cut right through the concrete floor and down into the ground. Above it, another hole opened through the upper floors and the roof, letting in the storm.
I had just needed somewhere dry for the night. I’d used the empty house most of the last winter, and with storms coming, it would make a perfect shelter. But once I got inside, I heard a voice. It was counting.
Sort of.
“. . . 96609226454614304087 . . .”
“Hello?” I called out. More muffled numbers. A dim light under a doorway led me to the basement. I crept down the steps and saw a human shaped bundle curled up beside a candle.
The voice kept going. “. . . 757626837119261335990 . . .”
“Hey, buddy. You staying here?”
The hairy shadow of a man turned around slowly and looked at me, eyes wide with a kind of madness, like he was happy and terrified all at the same time. The numbers
kept coming, his gravelly voice getting louder and louder, “. . . 922415118713814691393 . . .”
“What is that? What’re you doing?”
“. . . 4901567618144852795178 . . .”
“Stop it,” I shouted.
His voice dropped suddenly, almost a whisper: “. . . 855431231853 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . 1”
There was a flash.
Then nothing.
Sparks
The fire was burning low, and we were the last ones. Though neither of us had spoken for several minutes, I got the sense we were waiting for something to happen before we could leave. But then you stood up suddenly.
“Are we going?” I asked.
“Do you want to?” Firelight danced on your face and in your eyes.
I wasn’t ready to leave, but for some reason I didn’t want to admit it. “I don’t know.”
Nodding, you drifted off a short distance into the darkness and returned with two small logs. “Not yet,” you said, dropping them into the fire. A flurry of sparks sprang into the air where, one by one, they faded into darkness. I couldn’t tell if the little points of light were rushing away from the flames, or whether they had leapt up in hopes of finding a place to start their own blaze. Either way, I wanted to reach out and catch them, to shelter their faint warmth and light from the cold darkness.
“When?” I asked feeling strangely anxious.
You had settled back into your seat gazing at the fire, but you looked up at me with a warm smile. “Not yet.”
Tenderly
The gunshot was louder than she expected. Shrieking, she dropped the pistol and covered her ears.
“You won’t do it,” he had said. And she had believed him.
Without even thinking she found herself rushing out of the house. All she knew was that she wanted to get out of that place.
“Don’t make me do it.”
Her hands shook on the steering wheel. “If I’m not careful, I’ll kill someone,” she thought. Then a more horrifying idea struck her. Almost running over a mailbox, she pulled over, threw open her door, and vomited.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t come near me ever again.”
“Give me that.”
“STAY AWAY FROM ME”
As soon as the door opened, she collapsed into her friend’s arms.
“Judy? What is it?”
“Just hold me, Angie,” she said. “Please just hold me.”
His gun was in her hands. She had hidden it under a pillow, though she couldn’t remember grabbing it.
“Do you still love me, Angie?”
There was a long silence. “I’m with Sara, now.”
“Kiss me.”
“But . . . you and Mark?”
She shook her head.
He had that look again. “Come here,” he said.
“Just once,” she said, “I want to be kissed tenderly.”
Wish
The sudden flash in the heavy blackness caught her eye like a shooting star.
She made a wish. It was a sort of morbid tradition she had.
Her father had been a smoker and a drinker. She was six when he first burned her with a cigarette. Sometimes she still saw that smoldering prick of fire and ash coming toward her face, and since then, the pain of her burns would return whenever she came anywhere near fire or smoke.
At sixteen, she had been driving at night for the first time. Her father was in the passenger seat yelling about something. She wanted him to stop—stop shouting, stop hurting her, stop making her miserable.
Then—a flash of orange cinders
She had never seen a cigarette thrown from a car window before. It flew at the windshield and in a flash of sparks she smelled tobacco and burning flesh, and felt her scars ache.
she tensed
hands jerked
her father shouted
and she was just wishing he would stop
and they were flying
spinning
Then all was still. And quiet. Just her breathing and . . . nothing else.
Now she wishes on cigarette butts. Because of guilt. And maybe hope.